8-minute read / Leadership
In 2008, I walked into a meeting with my mentor of ten-plus years and walked out without a job. Twenty-five years in corporate America – VP roles, global teams, and Chief Knowledge Officer, and I was shown the door. Not because I didn’t produce. I was a massive revenue generator and task producer.
I lost that job because of who I was becoming as a leader.
Only after I exited did I learn of the label many had given me – tyrant, bully boss, bitch…you name it.
Now, we can talk about why someone, anyone, didn’t confront me about that. But that’s for another blog post, as far to many managers FAIL to do it.
But right now, I want to share how both I and hundreds of executives, over the last 18 years of my executive coaching, transformed their entire leadership approach so they didn’t risk the same fate.
It’s called the 5-Step Shift to Riches Formula. It’s a process for discovering, confronting, and shedding the bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity one feels, so they can create, accelerate and shift into the riches they were always meant to become.
Now, if your immediate reaction was – I don’t have any fears or insecurities. Well, that’s your first wake up call, because we all do.
And if you are a manager sitting inside a corporate organization right now, feeling any kind of gap between the leader you are today and the leader you know you are capable of being, this is the process worth understanding.
The Problem No One Wants to Name
Over the years, I have found that most managers who struggle are not struggling because they lack skills. They are struggling because of what is driving their behavior – fear of losing control, insecurity masked as perfectionism, ego that blocks feedback, self-doubt that shows up as micromanagement.
It’s why I call these fears ‘bitches’ (internal fears, insecurities, and ego patterns that drive bad leadership behavior – not a person), because they cause one to project and lash out in ways that are not authentically them. Yet, sadly, to others, it is.
It was those fears that cost me my job.
But, you don’t have to be at risk to know that how you are leading is not working for you, your team, or the business. Heck, even in your life.
What Transformation Actually Looks Like
A few years into my shedding process, I was out running at a local park when I ran into two former employees. After a moment of hesitation, one of them looked at me and said: ‘Did you have any work done? You look ten years younger.’
I laughed hysterically. Because I understood exactly what they were seeing — not a cosmetic change, but the visible result of letting go of the weight and angst I had been carrying for decades. The scowl was replaced by openness, and the mask replaced by presence.
I responded, ‘That’s what happens when you shed your bitches.’
That story is not just motivational. It is a description of what even my clients experience when they move through all five steps. The change is visible — to their teams, to their peers, to themselves.
The Five Steps
This process is the exact one I walked through to finally learn about me – who I was, who I wanted to be, and most definitely, who I didn’t want to be.
The formula moves through five phases, which are, Discover, Confront, Shed, Create, Accelerate.
Step 1 – Discover is the work of seeing yourself clearly: the fears, the insecurities, the external saboteurs, and — critically — the strengths and values that get buried under the heavy armor of not wanting to seem conceited or ambitious.
Initial questions could be: Who am I – as a woman/man, as a friend, lover, even leader? Who do I want to be? Who do I not want to be, especially as a leader? What fears or insecurities keep me from being that person?
There’s many more questions, but this is a strong starting point.
Step 2 – Confront is the work of facing what you learned about yourself, without rationalization or blame. This step isn’t easy but it is so freeing. And, if you have chosen to walk through this on your own, then, it’s only you who you need to face, though there are others who would support you through this without judgement or ridicule.
Step 3 – Shed is the deliberate act of releasing the behaviors, beliefs, and patterns that are no longer serving your leadership or the people around you.
An exercise you can do – on a sheet of paper make 4 columns – Fears, Cause, Evidence It’s Not True, and New Story.
In the first column, list out all of your fears, insecurities, and doubts.
Second column you want to be brutally honest about where those fears stemmed from.
Third column you want to find evidence that those fears are NOT true.
The fourth column is your chance to rewrite what you told me.
LISTEN to this week’s Shedding the Corporate Bitch episode to hear what my triggering fear was that caused me to lash out. HERE
Then, and only then, do you move to Step 4 – Create. It’s only possible when you have confronted what’s been getting in your way. And, I have a warning – most of my clients want to start here, at Create. They want to build a new leadership vision, set new goals, adopt new behaviors, and skip the first three steps entirely.
However, creating on top of unexamined patterns is not transformation. It is performance, wearing a mask, because new behaviors built on unconfronted fear do not stick. The armor comes back. The old patterns resurface, because the root of the issue was never addressed.
But, once you do, Create is exhilarating, exciting, and so motivating. You are feeling the change happening and you see the world different.
You want more, new, different, and bigger, and that’s simply liberating.
Finally, there’s Step 5 – Accelerate. This is the work of sustaining it, through iteration, accountability, and continued investment in growth.
At this stage you are feeling the shift, others are experiencing it, and you are wanting to accelerate even more newness and opportunities.
More importantly, these 5 steps give you a tool you can use over and over again when new challenges come up, so you can accelerate even faster and more successfully.
I have to tell you – this was the hardest leadership lesson I ever went through, and it was the most transformative.
Where You Can Start
Here are three specific actions you can take, not someday, but today.
- Name your dominant internal fear or insecurity and write it down. That is your Discover work.
- Identify one behavior, just one, that is costing you trust, impact, or peace in your leadership. That is your Confront and Shed.
- And write one sentence about the leader you are choosing to create. Not the leader your organization needs. The one you want to be.
You do not have to wait for a crisis to make that choice. The leader you are today doesn’t have to be the leader you were meant to be. You can decide you want new, more, bigger, and different, right now.
For a deeper look at where your leadership gaps currently sit, the Leadership Gap Diagnostic HERE takes about 15 minutes and is free. It’s one of the most honest conversations you can have with yourself about your own leadership.
